Cisco - Technical Overview of Virtual Device Contexts
The Cisco® Nexus 7000 Series Switches introduce support for the Cisco NX-OS Software platform, a new class of operating system designed for data centers. Based on the Cisco MDS 9000 SAN-OS platform, Cisco NX-OS introduces support for virtual device contexts (VDCs), which allows the switches to be virtualized at the device level. Each configured VDC presents itself as a unique device to connected users within the framework of that physical switch. The VDC runs as a separate logical entity within the switch, maintaining its own unique set of running software processes, having its own configuration, and being managed by a separate administrator.